The Egyptian Food Bank has announced its contribution to the 100 Million Meals campaign, launched by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI).
The initiative works to provide food support to less privileged families during the holy month of Ramadan. Through this campaign food boxes will be distributed to beneficiaries in 13 Arab, African and Asian countries, out of the 30 countries included in the initiative. The countries that will receive the boxes are: Egypt; Sudan; Somalia; Angola; Uganda; Ghana; Sierra Leone; Tunisia; Jordan; Mauritania; Lebanon; Iraq; and Yemen.
The UAE Ambassador in Cairo Hamad Saeed Al Shamsi said that his country has a pioneering status in the field of humanitarian work, due to the wise leadership of the UAE’s founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed, “who inculcated in us the values of coexistence, humanity, and giving back to the community”.
Al Shamsi pointed out that the MBRGI is adopting UAE’s leadership humanitarian values and supervising its implementation in all the campaign targeted countries, regardless of the beneficiaries’ race or religion.
“Egypt constitutes strategic depth of the Arab world and we are always eager to cooperate with it in all kinds of initiatives”, Al Shamsi added.
He praised the roles of Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity and the Egyptian Food Bank in overseeing charitable work in society. He stressed that the upcoming period will witness more human-centred projects to serve the Egyptians.
For his part, Egyptian Food Bank CEO Mohsen Sarhan said, “The ‘100 Million Meals’ is the largest initiative of its kind in the region, with the aim to provide food security for millions of impoverished throughout the holy month of Ramadan.”
He added, “Being a part of this campaign will help us secure food for the beneficiaries, eradicate hunger and reduce food waste across the country.”
Sarhan stressed that the participation of the Egyptian Food Bank in this initiative falls in line with its four-pillar strategy, which works to fight hunger and secure basic food supplies to beneficiaries. The four-pillar strategy incorporates prevention, protection, empowerment, and elevation.
“We at the Egyptian Food Bank curated several programmes to meet our four-pillar strategy, foremost, implementing programmes to combat problems caused by malnutrition which falls in line with the prevention pillar,” he said, “The protection pillar focuses on fighting hunger and crisis-related food shortage.”
He added that empowering individuals comes within the Egyptian Food Bank’s core responsibility, by supporting family members to earn their living. This comes along with aiming to elevate the social development field through developing the skills of youth to create and implement innovative and effective social responsibility programmes.
Sarhan said that the Egyptian Food Bank’s participation in the ‘100 Million Meals’ initiative is bringing the bank closer to its ultimate goal.
Moez El Shohdi, Founder and Chief Executive officer of the Food Banking Regional Network said, “The Food Banking Regional Network was coordinating and supervising the distribution of the food packages to beneficiaries who suffer poverty as well as those who are economically impacted by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic across 30 different countries through different food banks established in these countries.”
He added that this is particularly important during the holy month of Ramadan, where millions of families need basic food supply to break their fasts.
El Shohdi noted that all precautionary measures were taken into consideration while packing the food boxes, with nutritious food provided to stay healthy. This is in addition to ensuring that personal protective equipment (PPE), such as face masks, disinfectants, and sanitising alcohol are used to limit the spread of COVID-19.
